Mean Girl Bindi Irwin Advocates Shaming Other Girls

Bindi Irwin is growing up, and she’s using her platform as the daughter of a deceased crocodile poker to make a name for herself in the wildlife-centric realm of entertainment… and to cast aspersions on girls of the same age who wear revealing clothing.

In her short life, Bindi Irwin (who will turn 16 in July) has been both praised for her early work in the field her father so loved as well as criticized for working with SeaWorld after the controversy raised by a recent documentary.

But Irwin ragged on girls in a recent interview — a puzzling and sad digression considering the functionality of clothing necessary for exploring the oceans and bush in a manner of which her dad was so fond.

Irwin may be just 15 but she has the condescending, critical tone of much older women down pat. As she reflected upon getting to an age where she experiments with clothing and makeup, she laid into other girls and how they choose to dress — judging them as “trying to hard” and suggesting that girls who wear revealing clothes are pitiable.

She said:

“I’m a big advocate for young girls dressing their age… I mean, for me, I look around at a lot of young girls that are my age and they’re always trying to dress older. Whether it’s wearing revealing clothes or hardly wearing any clothes at all, I feel really bad for them.”

Bindi continued:

“It kind of has the opposite effect in some ways… it kind of does the opposite where it makes you look younger and like you’re trying too hard.”

At just 15, she believes that women should not only be ashamed of skimpy garments today — but that they are destined to feel remorse in the future for dressing in a way that makes them feel confident. She chides:

“I almost wish I could tell young girls, ‘look, in 10 years when you look back at yourself, you’ll cringe honey, honestly.’… A lot of times I want to grab these girls and say ‘look… in 10 years you’ll regret this. Just dress like who you are. Don’t try so hard. A pair of jeans and a T-shirt is just as gorgeous and even makes you look classier.”

Irwin concludes:

“I look at adults and they say ‘when I was young I was wearing blue eye shadow’ and I’m cringing. So to be able to have that outlook on life is such a blessing and I’ve gotten that from my mum especially… The way I choose to dress, I want to influence other people around me I suppose.”

Of course, she’s young and she’s just working out how she feels about things — but in 2014, the increasing guidelines of what is “too sexy” seems to be ever closing in on even the most basic of garments. Yoga pants, leggings, and tank tops, clothing we wore without a second thought in the 1980s and 1990s, are now being banned from schools across America for being too “distracting” to boys. (Boys who used to be expected to concentrate in a classroom full of girls in Catholic school uniforms, no less.)

To those of us who remember the past — Bindi Irwin was born in 1998 — it’s frustrating to see this new “norm” presented as the way it always was. At 35, I’m old enough to be her very young mother, and even before I was born, women and girls were not expected to cover up all that much in the summer or for athletics.

Witness these immodest relics of the ’70s, back when no one worried about tank tops or short shorts:

What Bindi Irwin and this whole wrongheaded modesty movement need to understand is that the kids are alright — where I live, surrounded by beaches, swimwear is a two-season norm for males and females. For decades people have dressed skimpily for the weather and for activities, and we’ve not been significantly morally corrupted just yet.

Instead of arguing for girls to have more to worry about and a smaller range of motion, why can’t Bindi Irwin just continue working to make a difference for females by doing something actually constructive and not restrictive?

[Image: Bindi Irwin, Random House]